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Mitt Romney holds a seven point lead over Rick Santorum in the upcoming Wisconsin primary next Tuesday, according to a new Marist/NBC News poll. From Marist:
Here is how the contest stands in Wisconsin:
- 40% for Mitt Romney
- 33% for Rick Santorum
- 11% for Ron Paul
- 8% for Newt Gingrich
- 7% are undecided
“The pattern of support is similar in Wisconsin as elsewhere,” says Dr. Lee M. Miringoff, Director of The Marist College Institute for Public Opinion. “The advantage for Romney is the Wisconsin GOP primary electorate more closely resembles states he has carried.”
This is the second poll this week out of Wisconsin to show Romney leading with high single digits. Similarly, a Marquette Law School poll had Romney up by eight.
A loss in Wisconsin would be a serious setback for the Santorum campaign which is desperately trying to stop the sense that Romney is inevitable. Wisconsin is one of the few state left in this primary outside the Bible Belt that doesn’t have a large Mormon population or isn’t extremely liberal. Based on the demographics, Santorum potentially can win here, so losing Wisconsin would be a serious problem.
If Santorum doesn’t beat Romney in Wisconsin there really aren’t many states left where he could potentially change the narrative. If Santorum loses this primary on Tuesday expect the drumbeat to get him to drop out to intensify. This long primary fight has been really damaging to Romney’s image.
5 Comments
Be careful what you wish for.
Romney’s worst enemy isn’t Gingrich or Santorum or the crazy old gold bug or even Obama.
Romney’s worst enemy is Romney.
The more he talks, the less people like him. He can’t be the candidate without talking. It’s a LONG time until November, and the guy dishes up a gaffe per week. He will be stunned and amazed when he can’t just erase the Etch-a-Sketch. He has been spending money like water to barely beat some of the worst campaigners in history. Obama can’t govern worth diddley, but he is an outstanding campaigner.
If Romney locks up the nomination now, he might be polling in the mid 20s by November.
Wisconsin may not be EXTREMELY liberal and there may be a lot of dairy farmers upstate and it may have been the home base of Joe McCarthy, but I’d still say that it’s liberal.
Wisconsin, Maryland, and DC have winner-take-all Republican primaries, so if Romney carries all three, then he could gain almost 100 delegates. In DC, Santorum isn’t even on the ballot.
I think Romney’s meeting a few days ago with Gingrich probably closed a deal for Gingrich to stay in for a while yet, and/or, it’s likely, to endorse Mitt after a “decent” time has elapsed to not make it look like so MUCH of a deal.
True or not, unless it comes out that Romney has a really odiferous skeleton in his closet, he’s in, and the only floor fights in Tampa will be over just how many bones the party mainstreamers will have to throw to their asshats.
I agree that Romney’s a lousy campaigner, but the chickens circling the White House landing pad now, are all Obama’s, and the republicans in congress won’t let him go after them to divert them anywhere.
I think this will be a close election, and given Obama’s track record, if I were a mainstream republican, I wouldn’t be bothered at all by the prospect of another 4 years of Barack Obama.
Particularly with the repubs still having the purse strings in the House, which they will, AND with a decent chance to pick up enough swing-state seats to re-take the Senate. If that happens, and Obama squeaks through, how many people here think we’ll see any of the real changes we so desperately need?
Thanks, I didn’t think so.
It would be a perfect scenario for Mr. Centrist; he wouldn’t have to utter a word of apology for doing even less than his politically inert first term. All he’d have to do is point to the republicans and say:
“I really wanted to accomplish some good things, but the big-bad GOP boogers just wouldn’t let me.”
Of course, the hosing of america by corporate interests would continue apace, if not pick up, and that, after all, is the whole idea.